Visit by Mikhail Gorbachev to Saint-Petersburg

On March 12, 2004, Mikhail S. Gorbachev paid a visit to Saint-Petersburg. During his stay there he visited the construction site of the Raisa M. Gorbachev Childhood Hematology and Transplantology Center, held a meeting of the Working Group of the Center’s International Board of Trustees and opened the meeting of the National Investment Council on Attracting Investment to the Housing and Communal Services Sector, held at the Tavrichesky Palace of the city.

The Working Group of the Center’s International Board of Trustees headed by M. Gorbachev met in Saint-Petersburg’s Ivan Pavlov State Medical University. The meeting chaired by the President of the Gorbachev Foundation Mikhail Gorbachev was attended by the President of the National Investment Council and Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Aleksandr Ye. Lebedev, President of the Ivan Pavlov State Medical University N.A. Yaitsky, construction company executives and city officials.

Prior to the meeting, its participants had visited the construction site and observed the progress in implementing the Project. As of now, 7 floors of the Center have been built, and the whole 12-floor building is scheduled for completion in June 2004 (around USD 2 million will be needed to complete the construction). Following that stage, a total of no less than USD 12 million will have to be raised for interior finishing and acquisition of necessary equipment.

A number of decisions were taken at the meeting to improve coordination of efforts for successful completion of the Project. The next meeting of the International Board of Trustees scheduled to discuss the issues related to further financing of the project will be held this June.

The Raisa M. Gorbachev Childhood Hematology and Transplantology Center will become an integral part of the Saint-Petersburg’s Ivan Pavlov State Medical University. The building is been constructed one the site located between two existing operational buildings of the University, one of which houses the bone marrow transplantation clinic, operating rooms, different laboratories and other relevant auxiliary departments. Construction of the Center has been carried out since April 2001 as one of the projects in the charity efforts taken by the Gorbachev Foundation and Russia’s National Reserve Corporation in the North-Western Region of Russia. The main goal of the Project is to assist in the implementation of the oncohematology program providing prevention and treatment for children and teenagers.

The moral authority of Mikhail Gorbachev, large scale and social directedness of the Project, as well as long-standing business and trust relations made possible for the Foundation to involve in the implementation of the Project one of the largest Russian holding companies – the National Reserve Corporation. It channeled one million dollars to the establishment of Center, thus becoming not only the General Sponsor of the construction, but also one of the pro-active organizers of the Project.

The construction of the Raisa M. Gorbachev Childhood Hematology and Transplantology Center is the first and so far the only example in Russia when such a major socially-oriented medical institution is been established on the initiative of a non-governmental organization raising money from sources other than the state budget. This medical center is been built to ensure that children with leukemia living in the North-Western Region of the Russian Federation will be given an adequate level of treatment.

Later in the day at the historical Tavrichesky Palace of the city Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened the meeting of the National Investment Council on Attracting Investment to the Housing and Communal Services Sector. In his speech the former Soviet president pointed to a special urgency and relevance of the issue in question and warned against hurried decisions. He flatly rejected proposals made by functionaries from the energy sector “to offset all the disgraceful things developed over the decades in the housing and communal services sector by new increased tariffs. If something to that effect happens, 80 percent of the Russian citizens will not be able to pay their utility bills. Laissez-fair should not exempt itself from social responsibility.“